Urban Spree Galerie has the pleasure to invite you to the vernissage of « Burning Down the House », a solo show by German photographer Norman Behrendt.

Norman Behrendt’s photobook won the Dummy Award 2013 at the prestigious Kassel Fotobookfestival and was published in January 2015 to successful acclaim as the 700 copies of the first edition published by Seltmann+Söhne were rapidly sold out.

Urban Spree Galerie is now proud to present in Berlin the exhibition « Burning Down The House » from June 5th to July 4th, 2015.

Subtitled “A photographic study of Berliner graffiti writers 2007—2012″, the photograhic series offers an intimate and unusual foray into the most secretive artists of the german metropolis.

Their name travels widely across the whole city train lines but their identity is never revealed.

Over a period of 5 years, Behrendt has gained a prime access to graffiti writers, train and rooftop burners, exposing the mundane portraits of the many anonymous writers of Berlin.

The exhibition at Urban Spree Galerie includes more than 40 portraits, including a unique series of Polaroid portraits that were sent to the writers and returned to the author with some add-ons, drawings, interventions, cut-outs and whose series adds to the show the point of view of the writers themselves and offers a low fi “contrepoint” to the main portrait series.